Documentation - How much is too much?

Pash · July 2007

We have a customer that we provide onsite support for from 9.00-13.30 (their most busiest periods). We support all general helpdesk tasks while maintaining all of the customers IT policies.

Now im fairly sure most of you who work in support have some kind of change control system in place, to reference changes on the network, active directory and so on. Thats perfectly fine, i understand the importance of change control.

But we are required to do pages and pages of additional documentation to attach to these change controls, documentation that no1 actually reads, it just gets signed and filed. To me, this is a bad system, I could implement something a thousand times better but apparently we have already offered this customer better solutions....it has fallen on deaf ears. It is frustrating when you have countless helpdesk tickets to complete and you can't do anything because change controls havent had 10's of pages complete for them.

Id like to hear what change control system you guys have and how much documentation is required?

Cheers,

Paul Boz · July 2007

"Ah! Yeah. It's just we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that'd be great. All right! thaaaaaaaanks"

WanBoy67 · July 2007

An Office Space moment, classic...

ally_uk · July 2007

All that paperwork just sounds like excessive work which on the whole is slowing work rate rather than increasing efficency.

I spent two years working on a helpdesk the actual support logs we kept were all stored electronically by a SQL database with a easy to access front end.

All the support requests were arranged by date and priority as far as the filling out paperwork aspect there were none. A notetaking and Solution section were added to each support request log as a means of basically describing the problem , solutions and any work in progress.

So not only do you have access to current jobs you also build up a knowledge base at the same time which you can implement search features to get results from the database fast.

Lol 10 pages on one problem which nobody reads? then why are you filling it out hold a meeting with your manager and state that it's a waste of time and is slowing you down!

Good luck man!

JDMurray · July 2007

There are policies, procedures, and agreements in place that determine the type of detail of the documentation that your business must provide and maintain. These rules may come from customer contracts or from your own corporate lawyers. Sometimes the rules simply arrive out of nowhere, spewed from one of your boss' orifices. This means that the rules for documentation are usualy not negotiable, and you follow them simply to earn your paycheck.

Where I work, we provide documentation to the level that is specified by our lawyers and insurers, and our customer's lawyers and insurers. This means that a lot of docs are written that will never be read-out again--unless it's by auditors or in a court of law. This includes all emails ever sent over the corporate network ("Dude, did you see that new chick in accounting? She is sssssoooooooo *HOT!*").

blargoe · July 2007

Michael: I don't think an occupational hypnotherapist is going to help you solve your problems, OK?
Peter: I think that the guy might actually be able to help. I mean he did help Ann lose weight.
Samir: Peter, she's anorexic.
Peter: I know! The guy's really good.

Pash · July 2007

Well its kind of getting better, it is being arranged so we can actually worry about fixing user problems while onsite and worry about the documentation later. But get this....im onsite at another customer location this evening...changing ACL rules on a 6000 series Cisco modular switch....not one piece of documentation needed for that...and that was a banking organisation!

Ahh well, JDMurray is spot on....do whatever keeps the customer happy and pays my cheque each month. I can only do what I have time for.

Cheers all,

Ohh and btw is office space like the original uk office series or completely different.....Coz the office over here written by Ricky Gervais was huge.

Slowhand · July 2007

When you can't see your desk anymore, you've got way too much paperwork to fill out. When it's stacked so high that you can't see your boss anymore, it's just right.

WanBoy67 · July 2007

Pash wrote:

Ohh and btw is office space like the original uk office series or completely different.....Coz the office over here written by Ricky Gervais was huge.

Office Space was first (1999), then you can see the similarities in characters in the original UK version of the Office (which started 2001) and then that was rewritten for a more American humor and some of the jokes don't make sense States-side (which started 2005). Then Ricky Gervais was considered a comic genius

funny, no genius.

Further proof to this theory was Office Space being shown 4 times within 3 years after midnight on BBC 2 around the time of the UK version of the Office - it was shown the night after the first Christmas special if I recall properly. As if this was some type of copy of the Office, yet it was first.

Documentation - How much is too much?

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